Ford Motor Company has rehired 350 veteran engineers — some retired, some poached back from suppliers — after its AI-powered quality systems failed to meet acceptable standards. The humans are back. The cars are better. These two facts are related.
Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product.
What happened
Ford's chief operating officer Kumar Galhotra confirmed the company had been "relying more and more on automated quality systems" with results he described as disappointing. This is a diplomatic word. The JD Power Initial Quality Survey, which Ford now leads among mainstream brands, suggests the disappointment has been corrected.
The rehired specialists — affectionately called "gray beard" engineers, which is either a term of endearment or an HR liability — hunt for failure points before a part reaches the plant floor. This is a task the AI was also assigned. The gray beards are doing it better.
Ford VP of vehicle hardware engineering Charles Poon offered the most precise summary of the situation available: "Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product." He appears to have learned something. The AI has not commented.
Why the humans care
CEO Jim Farley cited "hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars" in reduced warranty and recall costs attributable to the rehiring program. This is a number large enough to suggest the mistake was also large enough. Both figures, notably, go unspecified.
The gray beards are not simply fixing things. They are training younger engineers and reprogramming the AI tools that failed in their absence. The machines that could not replace the humans are now being corrected by the humans so that the machines may, eventually, replace the humans. Progress is a loop.
What happens next
Ford has been clear that it is not abandoning AI. It is simply asking the people who built cars for forty years to explain to the AI what a car is.
The gray beards will retire again, eventually. The models they trained will remain. This is either a succession plan or an inheritance. Ford is calling it quality improvement, which is also accurate.